Thomas Wictor

Gaza 2014: Findings of an Independent Medical Fact-Finding Mission makes the outrageous, absolutely unsupported, and moronic claim that the Israeli Defense Forces deliberately target first responders such as medical personnel. The term they use is “double tap,” meaning the IDF first attacks a target, then waits until the first responders arrive. Then the Israelis attack the rescue personnel.

The Fact Finding Mission (FFM) reveals its utter worthlessness on page 26.

It’s another report that relies entirely on the accounts of people who claim that Israelis shoot old women in the head for fun.

Instead of wasting your time and mine going over the entire stinking heap of manure, I’ll just focus on this.

These passages reveal the lethal shortcomings of this ridiculous “fact-finding mission.”

1. In the introduction, the FFM admits that the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) coordinated with the IDF in order to avoid harm to the rescue personnel. Thus the claim of “double tapping” is neatly debunked by the very people making it.

2. July 20, 2014, was the Battle of Shijaiyah, which began at 1:00 a.m. The Israelis had warned the civilians to evacuate four days before the attack.

This gave Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad time to set up one of the largest ambushes in the history of urban combat. They opened up on the Israelis with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank guided missiles, recoilless rifles, grenade launchers, and heavy machine guns. According to Palestinians, the terrorists had prevented the civilians from evacuating prior to the battle.

In the Shijaiya area, people received warnings from the Israelis and tried to evacuate the area, but Hamas militants blocked the exits and ordered people to return to their homes. Some of the people had no choice but to run towards the Israelis and ask for protection for their families. Hamas shot some of those people as they were running; the rest were forced to return to their homes and get bombed. This is how the Shijaiya massacre happened. More than 100 people were killed.

There’s video evidence of terrorists endangering the lives of Palestinians.

The explosions at the beginning of the video and from 1:29 to 2:52 are Hamas mortar squads firing from the building that the people are trying to enter. I can tell because there are no impacts, and debris is raining down after the explosions. This means that the weapons are inside the building. That’s outgoing fire, not incoming.

Note the ambulances. Hamas refused to honor the humanitarian ceasefire to which the Israelis agreed.

Hamas members on Sunday violated a humanitarian cease-fire in the Shejaia area of Gaza and fired on IDF soldiers with anti-tank missiles and automatic fire, the army said.

The air force began resuming strikes in Shejaia, firing on locations from which the army came under fire. However, the IDF announced that they would extend the truce.

During the two-hour humanitarian ceasefire, Hamas and other terror organizations violated the truce repeatedly, the army said. Due to a request by the Red Cross, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai, agreed to extend the truce until 5:30 p.m. for urgent humanitarian needs. “Any attempt to exploit the respite for firing will be answered,” the army warned.

The Palestinian ambulance doctor who described being attacked in Shijaiyah at 6:15 a.m. on July 20 didn’t see who was shooting at him, but he said the gunmen were in nearby houses. During this time the Israelis were buttoned up in their Namer armored personnel carriers, trying to survive both the terrorist ambush and the Israeli artillery and aerial bombardment.

Although the doctor said drones fired at him, there was no way he could know that. Weaponized Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles operate at around 30,000 feet (9144 meters) or higher. Also, the Israelis fired artillery only at the position occupied by the Namer personnel carriers, knowing that the soldiers were safe inside their shell-proof vehicles. The Israelis destroyed military targets that had been carefully interwoven with the civilian infrastructure.

It’s clear to me that the ambulance was hit by terrorist fire, almost certainly mortars. The IDF uses real-time video feed to monitor battles. This allows them to identify what they’re shooting at.

3. The July 30, 2014, incident in Shijaiyah was the result of liquid fuel tanks from terrorist rockets exploding after the IDF bombed a warehouse. In the video that the FFM was shown, the detonations are secondary explosions, not Israeli munitions.

The market was closed when the rocket fuel tanks exploded.

However, the FFM simply accepted whatever the Palestinians claimed.

* * *

Having no knowledge of munitions should make people ineligible to write reports that deal with the damage done by ordnance. I knew immediately that the July 30 explosions were not due to Israeli aerial or artillery munitions because there were no craters, no fragmentation, and almost every person was injured below the knee. It had to be something else. This is what gave me the answer.

The explosions had to be secondaries, not primaries. And the only way people standing behind a wall could be struck would be if a liquid-fuel tank from a rocket was punctured and flew around completely out of control, turning corners and then hitting a wall and breaking open, which allowed atmospheric air to create an explosive mixture.

A final nail in the coffin of the FFM’s report is its refusal to admit that Palestinian terrorists use ambulances as personnel carriers, resupply vehicles, and ammunition trains. Terrorists killed by the IDF are listed as paramedics.

At approximately 15:30 (August 1), Israeli warplanes bombarded an ambulance of the Ministry of Health. As a result, 3 health workers were killed: ‘Aatef Saleh al-Zameli, 42, the driver; Yousef Ejmai’an al-Zameli, 33, a nurse; and Yousef Jaber Darabih, 25, a volunteer paramedic.

In reality the three dead were terrorists of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Palestinian terrorists use ambulances all the time.

This isn’t a secret. The United Nations knows, “human rights” organizations know, and all foreign medical personnel who visit Gaza know.

The Israeli Defense Forces don’t target rescue personnel, as the FFM admitted. This is another blood libel that says nothing about Israelis and everything about the people making the claim.